Job done, so when will Aussies warm to Pim?

Look fellas don't get me wrong, Pim has done everything the powers asked him to do -> To do get us to the World Cup. A lot of the banter has been about Pim not supporting the local game and furthering the interests of those who wish football doesn't progress in this country. Why did we recruit Pim? Because 1) He had extensive knowledge of Asia 2) He was Dutch - Let the train continue. No point trying to follow some other route. It suits our style of play. Physique, values etc. Lot of players in the Eredvisie etc.. 3) Has worked under Aussie Guus 4) Cheaper option than Troussier 5)Taken a team to the semi-finals of an Asian Cup 6) Assisting Dutch coaches in a worldcup 7) Different brand of coaching to Farina, Arnold etc.. Unfortunately, thats where it all ends. He hates attractive football aiming for caution and defense in most games. Still can't understand why he hasn't picked Nicky Carle in his starting x1. He's the next best thing after Harry Kewell. COMONE PIM FAIR GO!!!! Give us at least one game with flair players. Having said all this, it wouldn't hurt to review Pim's performance and perhaps consider hiring Troussier to help him play more sexy football. Change the selection policies and put in something more radical that will try and win us the world cup!!!!

clayton Good point

one thing that has been forgotten in the discussion, is that pim just isn`t cool. guus is cool. even el tel was kinda cool. pim is a charisma free zone. he can`t win. how much slack did roy keane get due to being ridiculously charismatic (and scary)? if he had charisma, we could probably ignore the pragmatic nature of his teams. works for mourinho.

Guys just a few sums I did on the viewing audience ...My understanding of pay TV in Australia is as follows ... just over 1.1 million locations (box's) in Australia... 728, 000 of which have the sports channels. So the 508, 000 peak figure or 431, 000 average needs to needs measured against the 728, 000 who actually have sport. Further many who follow football come from lower income levels and don't have pay TV... meaning when the sums are done its as follows... Australian population assume similar % wont watch sport i.e. (1, 100, 000 - 728, 000) / by 1, 100, 000 or 34%. Therefore remove 34% from 22 million which is 7.5 million. At this stage we have a potential audience of 22 - 7.5 or 14.5 million.. If we assume the same viewing pattern 431, 000 / 728, 000 or 59%. 14.5 million at 59% is a FTA audience of at least 8.6 million WOW by say 6 times a year ... bring on the next media deal....

lol Phutbol.

Midfielder, I agree and support everything you have posted. The only thing I disagree with is that I think it will take 15-20 years for the new programs to bare fruit, not 10. None of that still means we shouldn't hold Pim to account for the performances of the National team. NUFCMVFC has said it all, so I am not going to poorly attempt to reword the same thing :)

Hey, Sven-Goran Ericsson is now available. Maybe FFA should sack Pim and hire Sven after his sacking by Mexico. Fozzie would probably love that. I mean, Pim's only undefeated in this stage of WCQ and Sven hasn't won an away game for Mexico, but is a bigger name and has managed to fail with world class sides at the World Cup finals. So he'd be a better choice wouldn't he? Puh-lease.

NUFCMVFC Good posts will get back latter lots on today so much latter in the day.

JImbo From the SMH today... http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/football/million-watch-crunch-match/2009/04/02/1238261727538.html Million watch crunch match April 3, 2009 THE Socceroos' historic 2-0 win over Uzbekistan on Wednesday night may not have been the most attractive of spectacles but it still managed to produce a record audience for Australian subscription television. An average viewership of 431,000 turned in to watch Pim Verbeek's men move to within touching distance of next year's World Cup, with a peak half-hour audience of 508,000 viewers. Nearly one million viewers tuned it at some point during the match, although the final figure does not include those who watched the game at Foxtel-enabled venues. Football Federation Australia chief executive Ben Buckley said the figure illustrated the new-found pulling power of the Socceroos. "We know from the 2006 World Cup that the Socceroos have a large following and Australians are genuinely excited about the possibility of us participating in 2010," he said

Above comment is in wrong thread

Regarding the Uzbeks, let's remember they were doing very well in the first group phase and have only been below par in the second before people start slagging them off

Agree with Davido, I get irked when I see people trying to aimlessly and spculatively long ball to Kennedy, he is great to use on the end well worked crosses with a good trajectory, ie on the end of Emerton in the first win vs Qatar in melbourne and of course Monday night amongst others Would like to see him and McDonald play up front Another issue regarding Veerbeek, people probably don't like his use of 2 CDM's + there is the fact he errs toward functinal players, and of course in this multicultural country of ours we have voices erring towards the creative playmaker, which is where the issues surrounding Nicky Carle over Brett Holman comes in, because some people want to see a creative element being fostered in Australias football cultural development and they perceive Pim as an obstacle to that. There is some merit, some creativity could have done the job in some of the lower tier games like the Asian Cup qualifiers and the teams we face in those matches, it may be deemed too risky for high tier WCQ but we need to ensure we are flexible and multi-dimensional

Generally speaking I think Pim has done an excellent job We have gone from being the last to qualify and having the USA Coach surmising we were crap on that basis to being almost the first, qualifying through a brand new COnfederation which holds many unknowns and many trips where there has only been a couple of days preperation time. Issue is that I think most Australians are quite frankly clueless when it comes to the challenges of elongated qualifying campaigns, and they have gotten too caught up in the impressive World Cup 2006 campaign euphoria to the point where they are constantly expecting to be able to play top quality football. This has some good sides, we expect and put our minds to doing well at sport that has served us well in other Sports like Cricket, Rugby League and Rugby Union despite significant disadvantage in terms of population pool, but people need to understand the practicalities People need to also remember we were a shambles in the Asian Cup and Pim has effectively turned that around There are issues to iron out, we haven't always played great, but none of the big guns in Europe are either, in SOuth America Brazil haven't exactly come flying out of the blocks and Argentina just got smashed 6-1 by Bolivia. Despite the often lack of aesthetically pleasing football we nonetheless have a GD of 8, 8 goals in five games and no gaols scored against which is something to envy. I think we only conceded two goals in the last round, one a 1-0 loss to China which was a dead rubber with a third string team and the other a 1-0 loss away to budding rival Iraq from a wonder goal. We have had a bit of luck, htat is always part of it but we have been well steered through both groups Asian Cup is a touch shaky but we'll be fine with European players + a bit more training camp time, which he A League players need and is one of the underlying issues for below par performances in those games. With the Euro players, it wasn't perfect but having a week instead of 2 days preperation and you could see the combinations were a lot better Regarding Hiddink, people need to remember South Korea slipped a bit after he left so he seems to have that impact where he's a hard act to follow. Not to mention that with post 2006 retirements there is a little bit of a quality of depth vacuum that hasn't quite been filled, ie no one comes close to challenging Schwarzer like Kalac and despite some up and coming youngsters that show promise we haven't had any of them break into Europe in the same mould as some of those that retired. Thank Goodness Craig Moore did a U-Turn For Veerbeek, what Australia needs now is to organise more friendlies to test his mettle against top quality opposition, Holland is good but we need the London friendlies against other European or even South American powers where the challenges are about in game tactical adaptiveness rather than circumstantial posturing which is often the case with WCQ's, ie the China at altitude and the Japan midweek with two days training etc. Some impressive performances in those and some Coaching development on Veerbeeks part will see a bit more confidence

ROLL ON SA ! The last WC really brought on the professonalism in Australian Football. I like the way we stayed sharp (probably getting sharper from the 35th minute) the whole game. I also liked the way we made minimal use of the long ball and the long cross. Got to say the back four looked a little soft for the first 30 minutes. Kudos to: Kennedy (of course) Culina (a great strike) PS. how could MB miss that!?

Rellum This is from our fans forum .... lets talk about positives for a change.... also two Mariners on the park Jedi & Megy's all good stuff.... http://marinators.net/forum/index.php?topic=2778.0

Rellum Love a debate just don't like one sided agenda driven comments .... Shock horror ... when Fozza talks about the 150 million dollars being currently spent on training academies to improve standards I will listen (BTW I have posted this challenge almost weekly for about six months) ... Also saying I wish tomorrow were Christmas does not make it so . Australia is moving in the right direction and moving very fast maybe not fast enough for the impatient one .. but they will send us broke. But what is important is are we doing anything about and yes we are A-League clubs are in the process of setting up their own development programs that will work to the national curriculum. State clubs are (with some cajoling) moving in the same direction. Having a coherent plan for the development of coaches and juniors is something we've never had before. The ASF/SA/FFA have never until now had the moral or political authority (for want of better terms) to actually implement these things. Football is being looked at in a top to bottom way. Talent identification is intended to work from a much earlier age, and the development programs mean the kids have a program to go on with and be basically hothoused with other talented kids. Institutes/Academies/YPL > NYL > HAL...Europe .. National team This top to bottom structure does more than simply hiring a few coaches for HAL clubs could ever do or what Pim can do. But of course the impatient ones dreaming of teams to compete with the the cream overseas want a fix now, as with the Socceroos that a bunch of players playing in second leagues will somehow rise above all else... You're not going to see players who've gone through this program from grassroots level to the elite for another 10 years when they start hitting the NYL. But the benefits for kids who are getting exposure now will gradually show over the intervening years. It's the quality and coherent development that these kids are getting that so many of the current crop of Australian & HAL players in particular missed out on - that's why the quality's still down, and that's why it won't rise in a hurry. From little things... This is hardly protectionist, if it were we'd be protecting the cottage industry development programs by the tinpot dictators of the state federations. Instead we're sweeping that aside and developing a real development program that works from kids to Socceroos. This will make us a great footballing nation not some Journalism asking the impossible and stating it is achievable. Now after HUGE amounts of football fans forums saying ... get off the grass mate .... soften the language (after all 5 games 4 wins 1 draw 8 goals for and 0 against , hard to argue with) and say lest have a debate .... Rellum a post on the Mariners Center of excellence ... and in post to follow I will put up a thread on facilities as two links often goes to mods but first have a look at how the center will look in about 20 months http://wm.a-league.com.au/HAL/CCM/ccm_081222_enc.wmv

All Craig foster is doing is asking for a debate. You guys should be loving that chance. The next three games are when Pim should be showing how he is planning to tackle the group stage. What players is he going to use and what will there roles be. Playing for a draw away from home is no good in the big time. One job is just about done, now it is time to start planning the next one. If after these three games we are really struggling to score and control teams, then I think it is a reasonable question to ask about whether we should be looking for someone else to take us forward. That still doesn't mean the answer would be sack Pim.

Jimbo Japan had a higher I think top number well over 500, 000 but .... http://blogs.crikey.com.au/chappell/...ence-tunes-in/ Socceroos “almost” through to World Cup as largest ever Foxtel audience tunes in April 2, 2009 – 12:26 pm, by Leigh Josey Thanks to Crikey’s TV guru Glenn Dyer, Crikey Soprts can reveal that the Australia/Uzbekistan World Cup Qualifying game in Sydney last night was the most watched ever program on Pay TV in Australia. The game averaged 431,000 people watching from 8pm to 10pm. Amazing effort by the Soccerroos to all but qualify for the World Cup in South Africa and the ratings success shows that: The incredible support they enjoy in this country and the potential for growth that the world game had And Foxtel’s foresight in purchasing the rights for the qualifiers. No wonder Frank Lowy and Ben Buckley were all smiles in the changing rooms after the match.

Mike, I think we are getting the results, more than the goals. Agree that Japan are having trouble finding the net in home games, but games they are definately dominating. Come the world cup on a neutral ground I'm sure the Socceroos will lift 110% and beat Japan if we meet them again in a WC game.

. . . and the 10 million Uzbeks and Japanese and others that watched it live. Would have had to knock of the previous most watched ever program on Pay TV in this country - the Socceroos Japan game.